Moon Kook-hyun (

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

: 문국현,

Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...

: 文國現, born 12 January 1949) is the leader of the

Creative Korea Party Creative Korea Party (; CKP) was a political party of South Korea. It was formed out of the Uri Party and its resulting civil splinter groups, with their leader Moon Kook-hyun, a well-known former business leader who recently started his poli ...

, who served as a well-known

business manager The Oxford English Dictionary defines a business manager as "a person who manages the business affairs of an individual, institution, organization, or company". Compare manager. Business managers drive the work of others (if any) in order to oper ...

and civil

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

campaigner in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

before entering his political career. Born in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

, Moon studied

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

at the

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (abbreviated as HUFS; Korean: 한국외국어대학교) is a private research university based in Seoul, in South Korea. HUFS consistently ranks as one of the best universities in South Korea. The university ...

, graduating with a BA in 1972, then took a postgraduate course in

Business Administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

at the

Seoul National University Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a national public research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is largely considered the most prestigious university in South Korea; it is one of the three "S ...

.Moon Kook-hyun, CEO Of Yuhan-Kimberly
", ''

Chosun Ilbo ''The Chosun Ilbo'' (, ) is a daily newspaper in South Korea and the oldest daily newspaper in the country. With a daily circulation of more than 1,800,000, the ''Chosun Ilbo'' has been audited annually since the Audit Bureau of Circulations w ...

'', 19 January 2001

As a Business Leader

Moon began his career at Yuhan-Kimberly( 유한킴벌리), a company manufacturing

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...

and woven fibre products. In 1983, he spent a year in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, taking some new management concepts. On his return, he developed the concept of "environmental management", focusing on

digital printing Digital printing is a method of printing from a digital-based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small-run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large-format ...

technologies and the use of

recycled paper The recycling of paper is the process by which waste paper is turned into new paper products. It has a number of important benefits: It saves waste paper from occupying homes of people and producing methane as it breaks down. Because paper fi ...

. In 1995, Moon became

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Yuhan-Kimberly. In 1996, Moon was appointed committee director of the U.N. Environment (UNEP) Korea Development Organization. Faced with a financial crisis in 1997, he developed a new shift system where workers worked twelve-hours shifts for four days running, then took four days off.

2007 Presidential Election

In August 2007, Moon resigned from Yuhan-Kimberly to run in the

2007 South Korean presidential election Presidential elections were held in South Korea on 19 December 2007. The election was won by Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, returning conservatives to the Blue House for the first time in ten years. Lee defeated Grand Unified Democra ...

. In October, he formed the

, with an

anti-corruption Anti-corruption (or anticorruption) comprises activities that oppose or inhibit corruption. Just as corruption takes many forms, anti-corruption efforts vary in scope and in strategy. A general distinction between preventive and reactive measu ...

, pro-environmentalist program, gaining a bit of support from liberal voters who supported the Participatory Government, conservative voters who wanted to change the government and liked a similar 'business leader' portfolio but disliked

Lee Myung-bak Lee Myung-bak (; ; ; born 19 December 1941) is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the ma ...

, and from the

labor movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

. In the election, Moon won 5.8% of the votes for fourth place. Moon is a Roman Catholic.

2008 Legislative Election

On April 9, 2008, Moon beat the close confidante of

(president)

Lee Jae-oh Lee Jae-oh ( ko, link=no, 이재오, RR: ''Yi Jae-o'', Hanja: 李在五; born 11 January 1945) is a conservative South Korean politician of the New Party 2018. He was member of the National Assembly for Eunpyeong-gu in Seoul, and served as Mini ...

(

GNP The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...

Incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an official, office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seek ...

), by more than 11%.Rise and Fall of Heavyweights
the Korea Times, Retrieved on April 9, 2008 Although the harsh loss of South Korean liberal candidates especially in Seoul at this 2008 election, his campaign against 'the Grand Korean Canal' project boosted his popularity in his electoral division and across the nation. However, he lost his seat after a year (2009.10.22) due to his party members gaining profit illegally by confidential information. The court sentenced him 8 months. In the 2010 re-election for his empty seat, Lee Jae-oh easily regained his seat by 58.33%.

References

External links

Official Homepage

Official Mini-homepage
at

Cyworld Cyworld () is a South Korean social network service. Cyworld was originally part of SK communication, and became an independent company in 2014. Members cultivate relationships by forming ''Ilchon'' (, Hanja: ) or "friendships" with each other ...

)
Official Weblog
at

Naver Naver (Hangul: 네이버) is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. It was launched in 1999 as the first web portal in South Korea to develop and use its own search engine. It was also the world's first operator to in ...

.com) Grassroot Organizations
MoonHamDae; Koreans with Moon, Civil Supporter`s Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moon, Kook-Hyun 1949 births Living people Politicians from Seoul South Korean businesspeople South Korean Roman Catholics South Korean environmentalists Members of the National Assembly (South Korea) Creative Korea Party politicians Hankuk University of Foreign Studies alumni The Asia Foundation